From caywood@wyvern.wyvern.com Sun Nov 28 19:59:39 EST 1993
Article: 8795 of comp.unix.solaris
Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris
Path: babbage.ece.uc.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!sgiblab!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!wyvern!caywood
From: caywood@wyvern.wyvern.com (John Caywood)
Subject: Solaris2/x86 FAQ
Message-ID:
Summary: Frequently-Asked-Questions list for Sunsoft Solaris x86.
Organization: wyvern.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 16:31:00 GMT
Lines: 703
Status: RO
Archive-name: Solaris2/x86
Last-modified: 1993/11/28
Version: 2
This is a Frequently-Asked-Questions list (FAQ) for Sunsoft Solaris x86.
The hardware compatibility section has been removed; for the latest
hardware compatibility information, send email to
x86-hwconfig@cypress.West.Sun.COM
Please submit additional questions and reports of unsupported hardware
that works. Email comments and questions to
caywood@wyvern.wyvern.com (John Caywood)
See also:
Solaris2/FAQ
Solaris2/Porting
pc-unix/hardware
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Table of Contents
1. The Product
2. Installation
A. Supported Hardware
B. Problems with supported hardware
C. Installation
2. Compatibility
A. Unsupported hardware
B. Sharing binaries
C. DOS
D. Windows
E. Data
3. Performance
4. Archive sites
5. Other Issues
6. Acknowledgments
APPENDIX A. Pioneer DRM-604X CD-ROM Changer
APPENDIX B. Partitioning a 1.3Gbyte disk
APPENDIX C. Installing a Parallel PostScript Printer
1. The Product
What is Solaris x86?
Solaris x86 is an implementation of Sun SPARC Solaris 2.1 on Intel(tm)
and compatible CPUs, and PC-compatible buses.
What does it include?
OPEN LOOK Window Manager and DeskSet environment
End user AnswerBook
X11 (X11R4) and NeWS(tm) protocol interfaces
32-bit UNIX(tm) System V Release 4 (SVR4) operating system, with
multi-threaded kernel and scheduling for realtime processes
Open Network Computing (ONC) environment with NFS, NIS, and NIS+
RFS and System 3 file system support optional
elf binaries; COFF binary support optional
Berkeley networking software
UUCP support
XGL 3.0 libraries and localization
Header files and math library
Automated Security Enhancement Tools (ASET)
(old) nroff and troff (-ms and -me), tbl, eqn
PostScript support (text and troff to PS; see /usr/lib/lp/postscript)
4 perfect-bound documents (Release Overview, OW 3.1 User's Guide, Getting
Started guide, and Configuration and Installation Guide)
1 spiral-bound Quick Reference Guide
Unlimited installation support by phone
What is not included?
No compiler; the GNU C/C++ compiler is available. See section 4.
No software support after installation
No DOS or Windows(tm) utilities (e.g., PC-NFS is not included)
Administrator's reference guides
Full AnswerBook
What media are supported?
The distribution media is CD-ROM.
How much does it cost, and where can I get it?
Current cost is $695.00 US for a 2-user license, $1750.00 for an
unlimited user license. C, C++, Fortran, and TeamWare are also
listed in the SunExpress catalog. In the United States, call
(1-800-USE-SUNX) or your local Sun sales office. Authorized
SunSoft distributors in other countries can also sell you the
product. See your Sun representative or SunSoft distributor
for corporate and educational prices, and for volume discounts.
One U.S. local sales office quoted a price of $420 for 1 year
of software support. Upgrade pricing in not yet available.
2. Installation
A. Supported Hardware
In previous versions of this FAQ, a transcription of the hardware
requirements and "Tested Systems" list from _Solaris 2.1
Late Breaking News for x86_, Revision A, June 1993, was included
here. Since then, Sun has set up an email distribution of the
latest hardware compatibility list. Rather than try to keep up
with this list, the FAQ maintainer has chosen to post this email
address instead:
x86-hwconfig@cypress.West.Sun.COM
If this email distribution channel is removed in the future, the
latest list will be restored to this FAQ.
B. Problems with supported hardware
The _Solaris 2.1 Release Overview for x86_ and other documents assert
that 2-button mice are supported. Several messages in comp.unix.solaris
report problems with 2-button mice.
The installation program inserts into /usr/openwin/lib/OWconfig the value
buttons=2
when you select a 2-button mouse as your pointing device. One user,
hope@multix.no (Andreas Hope), writes
You can try setting "buttons=3" in the /usr/openwin/lib/OWconfig file.
This simulates a 3rd button when shift-left button is pressed.
Another noted problem is installation and partitioning of disks with
more than 1024 cylinders. usinet!brooks@uunet.UU.NET (Lyle D. Brooks)
writes: "I tried to partition my 1.3GB disk to have a 300MB DOS 5.0
disk partition and the rest used for solaris." A long, detailed
workaround is attached at the end of this FAQ as Appendix B.
A problem with a 3C503 Ethernet card was reported by lupe.christoph@cic.de
(Lupe Christoph):
I had problems with the 3C503. I only got it to work OK with
rsize=2048/wsize=2048. The "Late Breaking News" recommended 4096,
but I had big problems with this. I may also be that the Ethernet
in my Sun was already a little bad. It gave up it's ghost recently.
C. Installation
1. CD-ROM installation
A 3-1/2" and a 5-1/4" floppy are included; to install, you boot from
one of these floppies and you are presented with a menu of devices
from which to proceed. The rest of the installation is supplied only
on CD-ROM; however, if you have a supported Ethernet card the CD-ROM
need not be local; see section Network Installation, below.
After setting time zone, hostname, and other particulars, you indicate the
devices you have; SCSI devices and Ethernet cards (if supported) are
recognized automatically. You indicate the video card, keyboard, mouse,
and serial ports you have.
You must then partition the disks. Any disk or part of a disk can be
dedicated to Solaris or to DOS; however, the Solaris portion must be
bootable.
You can then choose the software packages to install. The default is
End User System -- approx. 150M bytes, plus 32M for swap and you've
squeezed it onto a 200M disk. The entire distribution is listed as
282M bytes (plus swap sapce). After software selection, you must allocate
"slices" of the Solaris partition(s) to root, swap, /usr, and so forth.
Transferring the selected software from CD-ROM to disk takes about an
hour; the entire process will take you about 1-1/2 hours the *second* time
you do it. Note: if you plan to install the unbundled C compiler, you
will need about 100M bytes more in the /opt partition.
2. Network installation
Solaris x86 can be installed over the network if the target machine does
not have a local CD-ROM drive. The host with the CD-ROM drive can be
an Solaris x86 host, or a Solaris SPARC host; however, at least one user
reports that a patch is required for Solaris 2.2 to support this mode,
because the RPL daemon to support x86 booting is not included with
Solaris for SPARC.
richard@West.Sun.COM (Richard M. Mathews) confirms that the patch ID is
101085-01 SunOS 5.2: Allows SPARC servers to support x86 diskless,
remote install clients.
He adds "A similar patch is being prepared for Solaris 2.3. The rpld
server will be standard without needing a patch beginning with 2.4."
Remote installation works well, and if NIS or NIS+ is running, it answers
many questions for you. Add the new x86 host to the NIS databases first,
then install. However, if the machine on which you are installing has a
local disk, disk partitioning must still be performed.
The installation menu also lets you set up a diskless machine. One user
reports, "Diskless operation is often slow, unless you have very good
network cards and/or a fast server. But otherwise it works perfectly."
2. Compatibility
A. What unsupported hardware works?
If you have installed "untested" hardware, tell us what it was and what
you had to do to get it to work.
System Boards
>From david@bdt.com
I've managed to get a 486DLC/40 to work with Solaris. This is a
no-name clone "upgradable" motherboard with the Opti chipset.
It is specifically designed to handle the DLC chips and has
an AMI BIOS that is aware of the CPU. The only work-arounds
were that I had fully populate the cache (256K) or the system
crashed and I had to reduce the speed to 20Mhz for the CD-ROM
boot/installation.
Video Cards
>From david@bdt.com
I have also managed to get some low-end VLB Cirrus-Logic cards
to work with Solars and OpenWindows. Although the system hangs
if you use the EXIT function of OLWM. If you just kill the X
(news) server, you get the console back and it seems to work
fine. Performance is pretty good for the money (about $100).
>From lupe.christoph@cic.de
SPEA/VideoSeven Mercury VL (S3 928. Quite fast.)
Sun has a patch (101295-01) with a pmi file for the Mercury, but this
stretches my monitor a little far ("only" a NEC 5FG). The SPEA BBS
(+49 8151 266-241) has a set of pmi files. It should also have files
for the Vega and Mirage.
Mice
>From len@contec.com
You don't need a supported serial mouse. We've got piles 'o PCs around
the plant, and I've tried a bunch of mice with x86. The cheapest (and
also very nice ergonomically) one that worked was a Leadgen MOUSE LE160
a Taiwanese import that is sold with all of the documentation on the
back of the cardboard box! Anyhow, switch it to 3-button operation and
devconfig as if it were a Mouse Systems 3-button mouse and enjoy!
>From debra@win.tue.nl
I also have a Taiwanese mouse, called Target, with a switch to select
2 or 3 button mode, and which works well when I pretend it is a
Logitech serial mouse.
Tape drives
>From J.S.Caywood@LaRC.NASA.GOV
I have a TEAC MT2ST N50 SCSI tape; uses an audio tape cartridge. No
special configuration; ufsdump, ufsrestore, and tar recognize it as
/dev/rmt/0. No idea what the best block size is for it, but a ufsdump
with the "c" option got 142.5M bytes onto a 150M tape, so "c" must be
close.
>From debra@info.win.tue.nl
I managed to open up my PC (without crashing it) and the tape drive
(which was a gift) reads: 5945 S-1. The emulex controller reads
MT0210403. It's a typical old 60Mb tape drive from a Sun shoe box.
However, it does not work for non-rewinding writes; i.e. the devices
/dev/rmt/0*n can read multi-file tapes but not write them. You get an
I/O error when attempting to write the second file.
CD-ROM drives
>From akalla@Scribona.SE (Jan Akalla)
Pioneer DRM-604X is a CD-ROM changer with room for 6 CD-ROMS, where
one CD at a time can be active. It uses SCSI, and each CD has it's
own LUN (Logical Unix Number) under one SCSI-ID. Details in Appendix A.
Other SCSI Peripherals
>From lupe.christoph@cic.de
Working SCSI peripherals:
DEC DSP3210 (3.5" 2 GB disk. *Very* nice.)
Syquest SQ555 (42MB removable)
B. Binaries
What about my Sparc binaries? will they run?
No. That would need a full SPARC emulation; Solaris x86 is not an
*emulation* of SPARC Solaris, it is a port of that software to the
Intel platform.
What about SCO(tm) binaries? 386BSD binaries? Linux binaries?
>From debra@win.tue.nl
I have tried Esix binaries, and as long as you stick to normal system calls
they appear to work just fine. Binaries that attempt to do strange things
like access non-existent devices may cause problems. svr4mon for instance
doesn't work, XFree86 blocks the console, etc. Normal stuff like gcc work
just fine. Just tested emacs 18.59 with X-windows support and even that
works. An important side-effect of this compatibility is that compilers
for other sVr4 releases should work. (Haven't tried my esix compiler yet
though. If you want a non-gnu C-compiler, you can buy one from another
sVr4 vendor and not suffer from the crazy license server for the Sun
compiler.
C. DOS
DOS applications do not run under Solaris x86. However, you *can* boot
DOS from a floppy after installing Solaris. During installation you have
the option of partitioning a disk into Solaris and non-Solaris pieces,
with the only restriction that the Solaris partition must be the bootable
one. The Solaris partition is further divided into slices from within
Solaris, and these slices are not visible from DOS.
DOS floppies can be mounted as type PCFS file systems while running
Solaris. You must remember the 8.3 all-upper-case limits of the DOS.
If during the installation process you split a hard disk between Solaris
and DOS, you can mount the DOS partition while running Solaris; see
mount_pcfs(1M). For example, to mount the DOS C: drive which is on
the first controller onto /mnt
mount -F PCFS /dev/dsk/c0t0d0p0:c /mnt
Better yet, edit /etc/vfstab as db@sunbim.be (Danny Backx) did:
/dev/diskette:c - /A pcfs - no -
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0p0:c - /C pcfs - yes -
He also notes: "There is one gotcha with DOS partitions, though: I tried
to export it over NFS but could not. Don't know why. Solaris refuses."
The utilities 'dos2unix' and 'unix2dos' are in /usr/bin to translate
cr->lf/cr and vice-versa.
D. Windows
What is Wabi?
A Windows ABI emulation. It provides for running pure Windows
applications under Solaris (SPARC or x86). It does not provide a DOS
emulation environment but does have hooks for using a DOS emulator if
you have one.
Wabi, a product name, not an acronym, is supposed to be shipped before
the end of 1993 (November 22 is the latest estimate heard). Customers
purchasing Solaris x86 before the release of WABI will receive a mail-in
certificate, and upon returning it to Sun will be eligible for a free
copy when it is released.
E. Data
Can I NFS-mount directories from a SPARC?
Yes. Text is not a problem, but binary data is. A binary file stored
by an x86 and read by a SPARC will see the bytes in the wrong order.
If this type of sharing is desired the application must either translate
the data or store it in a canonical form. This is a generic NFS issue,
not a "bug" in Solaris x86. NFS makes no interpretation of the bits
within a file, it only presents them to the client as-is.
Users report success with 4.x SPARC, 2.x SPARC, Ultrix 4.2A (Rev. 47)
Can I share NIS or NIS+ data between Solaris SPARC and Solaris x86?
Yes. Solaris x86 works well as an NIS client. No reports yet on
its success or failure as an NIS master or slave.
>From Andreas Hope
I have tried both [NFS and NIS] from an ISC SVR3.2 server. No problems
except with symlinks over NFS mounted file systems.
3. Performance
Since there is no standard configuration for Intel platforms, performance
comparisons will be very difficult. Factors affecting performance are
bus (ISA, EISA, or MCA), disk interface (IDE, SCSI), and graphics adapter
on top of CPU speed. For example, you may have a 486/50 but experience
slow Open Windows response because of the limits of your video card.
>From debra@info.win.tue.nl (Paul De Bra)
I have my own set of tests, which show some interesting results, comparing
different machines unfortunately.
Running sieve test (many times to get non-trivial timing)
AT 486-66 Solaris 2.1 0.5 0.4 0.0
AT 486-50 Esix 4.0.4 0.6 0.5 0.0
AT 386-25 AT&T sVr3.2 3.0 3.0 0.0
This shows that in a compute-bound test performance is similar to that of
other sVr4 implementations.
Running a number of shell scripts (doing standard stuff like od, grep,
etc.)
machine unix-version 2 5 8 11 13 15
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT 486-50 Esix 4.0.4 1.0 2.5 3.8 5.3 6.0 7.1
AT 386-25 AT&T sVr3.2 2.6 5.4 8.0 10.8 13.0 15.0
AT 486-66 Solaris 2.1 3.0 6.3 9.8 13.1 15.0 17.3
I assume this requires little explanation: Solaris operating system
overhead is *a lot* higher than any other PC-unix. An old 25Mhz 386 beats
a 66Mhz 486-dx2!
Another way to really notice this is to turn off the 'turbo' switch (slows
down most machines to 10Mhz or so). With Esix this has a limited effect
(for simple interactive work) while with Solaris, the kernel overhead
eats most of the left-over cpu power, so the system becomes very slow.
This is the reason why Solaris is supposed to run only on 386-33 or better.
On a 386-25 there would be little user-mode cpu-time left.
4. Archive sites
Binaries are avaiable from
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/sun-info/solaris-x86
nic.funet.fi:/pub/unix/386ix/Solaris.x86
ftp.prz.tu-berlin.de:/pub/Solaris86/gnu
Sample drivers and driver-related information are available from
opcom.sun.ca:/pub/drivers
5. Other Issues
Licensing
Suppose you have bought a number of licenses of a SPARC application from
an ISV and then decision to run on Intel too. Will you automatically get
the Intel binaries, or do you have to pay for them? Will that be ISV
dependent? What is the most likely way the ISV will handle it?
Cross-compiling
Are there any SPARC-Intel cross-compilers to buy?
A partial answer from db@sunbim.be (Danny Backx):
I have used the GCC 2.4.5 sources to cross-compile a GCC on Solaris/x86
starting from a SPARC version. It was quite some work, but I now have
a GCC for Solaris/x86 which seems to "kind-of" work. I threw away the
cross-compiler, but the good news is GCC allows you to do it, if you
have an assembler. (GAS doesn't support this yet.)
Sun and ISV-s applications
Are all Sun's Solaris-2 products released on Intel? How well covered are
the ISVs products, i.e. those who have made the Solaris-2 port?
What third-party packages are available for x86?
Motif and COSE
When will Sun supply Motif for x86? Where can I get Motif now?
>From locutus.vortech.com!sharyl Mon Oct 25 15:15:56 1993
Motif for x86 will be available from Sun in April 1994 according to a
contact at SunSoft.
PostScript printers
Has anybody gotten printing to a PostScript printer over the parallel
port to work yet?
Yes. See Appendix C.
6. Acknowledgments
Messages from the following people were incorporated into this FAQ:
akalla@Scribona.SE (Jan Akalla)
alana@metro.co.uk (Alan Arthur)
buck@netcom.com (Buck Foreman)
David.Robinson@Eng.Sun.COM
db@sunbim.be (Danny Backx)
dean@coplex.coplex.com (Dean Brooks)
Doug.McCallum@Central.Sun.COM (Doug McCallum)
hope@multix.no (Andreas Hope)
ian@sq.com (Ian Darwin)
kate@digiw.fi (Kate Marika Alhola)
len@contec.COM (Leonard Mills)
lupe.christoph@cic.de (Lupe Christoph)
mbeyer@forge.tandem.com (Mark Beyer)
phj@tele.nokia.fi (Peter Hjort)
richard@West.Sun.COM (Richard M. Mathews)
Ronny.Bergstrom@eua.ericsson.se (Ronny Bergstrom)
sharyl@locutus.vortech.com (Sharyl Godlewski)
usinet!brooks@uunet.UU.NET (Lyle D. Brooks)
Trademarks
Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation
NeWS is a tradmark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
SCO is a trademark of The Santa Cruz Operation
UNIX is a registered trademark licensed exclusively by X/Open
If your trademark has been inadvertently omitted from this list, please
send email to the address at the top of this FAQ and the omission will
be corrected immediately.
The following appendices contain valuable configuration information, but
are specific to certain hardware configurations. Because the descriptions
are long, they have been moved to the end of the FAQ.
APPENDIX A. Pioneer DRM-604X CD-ROM Changer
>From akalla@Scribona.SE (Jan Akalla)
Pioneer DRM-604X is a CD-ROM changer with room for 6 CD-ROMS, where
one CD at a time can be active. It uses SCSI, and each CD has it's
own LUN (Logical Unix Number) under one SCSI-ID.
To be able to use DRM-604X under SunSoft Solaris x86, a file has to
be modified. The file is named /kernel/drv/cmdk.conf, and two lines
have to be added to that file for every LUN above 0.
Start by deciding what SCSI-ID the CD should use. In this example, I'll
use SCSI-ID number 4. Modify the file, so two lines are added as below:
#
# Copyright (c) 1992 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
#/
#ident "@(#)cmdk.conf 1.7 93/03/04 SMI"
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=0 lun=0
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std";
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=1 lun=0
disklabel="genlb","snlb"
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std";
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=2 lun=0
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std";
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=3 lun=0
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std";
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=4 lun=0
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std";
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=4 lun=1 NEW
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std"; NEW
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=4 lun=2 NEW
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std"; NEW
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=4 lun=3 NEW
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std"; NEW
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=4 lun=4 NEW
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std"; NEW
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=4 lun=5 NEW
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std";
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=5 lun=0
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std";
name="cmdk" class="scsi" target=6 lun=0
scsi_audio="sccd_sony","sccd_std";
Shut down the machine, and connect the drive. At the bootprompt type:
b -r
After this, you can use the different CDs using the following
devicenames:
/dev/dsk/c0t4d0p0
/dev/dsk/c0t4d1p0
/dev/dsk/c0t4d2p0
APPENDIX B. Partitioning a 1.3Gbyte disk
>From: usinet!brooks@uunet.UU.NET (Lyle D. Brooks)
I tried to partition my 1.3GB disk to have a 300MB DOS 5.0
disk partition and the rest used for solaris.
Adaptec 1742A (don't know about other Adaptec cards) plays games
with the BIOS translation to work around the DOS 1GB partition
limit. Basically, it uses a Standard or Extended translation mode
(not to be confused with the Standard or Enhanced mode of the
adapter). The Extended translation allows DOS to exceed the
1 GB limit.
Bottom line is don't use the Extended translation, use Standard
translation. This would not be so bad if that was all there was
to it, but once you install DOS and then install Solaris and reboot
with the Solaris partition as the active partition, you get a
message that says "requested cylinder is beyond range of BIOS
geometry".
This is because both the Solaris bootable as well as the alternate
sectors (used for bad block mapping) must be within the 1023
cylinders (another way of stating the 1GB limit). Solaris puts
the boot cylinders within the 1023 cylinder limit, but the alternate
sector cylinders are put at the 'end' of the Solaris partition and
thus are beyond the BIOS 1023 cylinder grasp.
What this means is a "secondary" install, where you break out of
the install process and re-format the Solaris partition to map
the alternate sector cylinders within 1023.
This is the workaround I got from SunSoft. It almost works. I've added
my addendum to the end, which taken with the SunSoft workaround, will
actually do the job.
According to Ken Lauw:
> From uunet!West.Sun.COM!Ken.Lauw Thu Oct 7 12:45:36 1993
> Message-Id: <9310071528.AA05612@mchale.West.Sun.COM>
> From: uunet!mchale.West.Sun.COM!kenla (Ken Lauw)
> Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 08:28:08 PDT
> X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90)
> To: brooks@usiva.com
> Subject: Solaris x86 Bios/Geom work around
>
>
> ==installing Solaris 2.1/x86 on a hard drive > 1023 cylinders==
>
> Problem Description:
>
> After solaris installation, you'll receive the following error message:
> "requested cylinder is beyond range of BIOS geometry."
> This error message will be generated when your SCSI controller card
> does not allow reading of bootable sectors, including the alternate
> sectors for bad block mapping, beyond 1023 cylinders.
>
> Current solaris installation puts the alternate sectors in partition 9
> by reserving the last 2 cylinders of the solaris 'fdisk' partition.
> This will often cause the alternate sectors to reside beyond 1023
> cylinders. The workaround is to ensure alternate sectors
> reside within 1023 cylinders.
>
> Note: This workaround example assumes that you have partition 7
> residing within 1023 cylinders and empty.
> This means that 'Start Sector' of partition 7 should be
> < (sectors_per_cyl * 1021). As the beginning sector of
> partition 7 will be changed with this workaround, we'll run
> 'newfs' on that partition later. If you don't have empty
> partitions to use, the easiest way is to redo the solaris
> installation and create empty partition 7 first (like
> /export/home or /usr2, etc.).
>
> Follow these steps:
>
> 1. Reboot your system using the solaris boot diskette and cdrom.
> 2. Select 'Exit to the shell' after you are asked to take the
> diskette out by responding to the prompt.
> 3. Edit the VTOC table to ensure the partition 9 (Tag 9
> means ALTSCTR slice) resides within the 1023 cylinder
> boundary as follows:
>
> # fmthard -i -n "" /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2 > /tmp/out
> # vi /tmp/out
>
> Note: you should not change the partitions where
> the system files are already loaded.
>
> Use this formula to switch 'Start Sector' between
> partition #7 and #9.
>
> old values in /tmp/out show:
> Start Sector Sector Count
> partition #7 8 00 X7 Y7
> partition #9 9 01 X9 Y9
>
> change to:
> partition #7 8 00 (X7+Y9) (unchanged)
> =
> partition #9 9 01 (X7) (unchanged)
>
> # fmthard -s /tmp/out -n "newlabel" /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2
> no error message should be reported.
> # newfs /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s7.
>
> 4. Reboot.
(Note: At first I found this somewhat confusing as to the terminology
used for partition and slice. Under Solaris 2.x I call partitions
what FDISK creates, and slices what Solaris does to further divide its
partition. Above 'partition' is used for both and one must read carefully
and determine by context which is use of 'partition' is being used.)
In my configuration, I setup a 300MB DOS partition first, then use the
remainder (approx 1GB) for Solaris. When I set up the Solaris slices,
I allocated 4MB for /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s3 to be mounted on /usr2. I do this
as a placeholder because when I re-format on install pass #2, I'll use
this to map slice 9 to the former /usr2 slice, which will get the
alternate sector slice within the 1023 cylinder limit.
So on install pass #1 I setup my Solaris partition as follows:
Device Mount Point Size(MB)
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 / 17
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 swap 64
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s2 raw disk 980
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s3 /usr2 4
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s4 /home 150
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s5 /opt 557
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s6 /usr 185
This of course won't boot because the alternate sector slice (slice 9
which isn't display on the disk prepartion because it's not mountable)
is a 2MB slice outside of the 1023 cylinder range. BTW 1MB = 1 cylinder.
So we boot with boot floppy for what I call install pass #2. When it asks
us to remove the boot floppy, we do and break out to the shell prompt.
Now we do a fmthard(1M) as in the above instructions. For my configuration
I get
Partition Tag Flag First Sector Sector Count
0 2 00 2048 34816
1 3 01 36864 131072
2 5 00 0 2007040
3 4 00 167936 8192
4 8 00 176128 307200
5 6 00 483328 1140736
6 4 00 1624064 378880
9 9 01 2002944 4096
I edit this and change "partition" 3 and 9 as follows:
3 4 00 172032 4096
9 9 01 167936 4096
Then I follow the instructions above to reload this configuration
using fmthard(1M) and It works!!
Only 15+ installs later...... ;-)
Hope this is of some help to anyone else who happens to wander down
this path!
APPENDIX C. Installing a Parallel PostScript Printer
>From alana@metro.co.uk (Alan Arthur)
In the FAQ, you asked if anyone had got a parallel postscript printer
working yet. I have (eventually!) You can't do it through the system
admin tool thing, you have to do it by hand. The following worked for me
(and my customers)...
chown lp /dev/lp1
chmod 600 /dev/lp1
lpadmin -p chops -v /dev/lp1
lpadmin -p chops -T PPS
lpadmin -p chops -I postscript
cd /etc/lp/fd
lpfilter -f download -F download.fd
lpfilter -f dpost -F dpost.fd
lpfilter -f ppostio -F ppostio.fd
lpfilter -f ppostior -F ppostior.fd
lpfilter -f postprint -F postprint.fd
lpfilter -f postreverse -F postreverse.fd
accept chops
enable chops
lpadmin -p chops -D "Parallel Postscript Printer"
lpadmin -d chops
lpstst -t
(Where the printer is called chops...)
--
"If you've always done it that way, it's probably wrong"
--------------------------------------attributed to Edward Kettering
John Caywood, aspiring Solaris x86 SA,! caywood@wyvern.wyvern.com
vi bigot, and wine drinker ! J.S.Caywood@LaRC.NASA.GOV